Dragon Looking For Treasure
by HVK
Summary: Following the events of the epilogue, Karkat sets out into the remnants of Paradox Space to understand the past better and learn something from it; along the way a mysterious troll watches him, waiting for the moment to approach him. As it turns out, Neophyte Redglare has developed a rather flushed interest in the descendant of the Signless.


Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck; this is solely a work of entertainment without monetary gain or compensation.

* * *

In the years since the game was finished and they made a new world to explore, Karkat had turned his eyes and mind from the waking world in favor of exploring; before the game he had slept in the game world for too long and still he bitterly blamed himself for their failings. If he had awoken then, he would have done better. If he had given himself to the visions and teachers as Terezi had, all his friends might still be alive, or everyone could be _happy_ and better than they were now. He couldn't say for sure.

But he had to know, he told Dave as he hugged him with horns low like you only ever did with moirails. He had to learn, he told Jade with a fumbling bonk to the forehead and suffering her bone-cracking hugs and promises that he better not sleep all the time. And he needed to _see_ for himself, he told Terezi as she kissed him on the way to her own voyage. Terezi understood more than anyone else, he thought.

As Terezi flew into the void in search of everyone and everything they left behind, to piece together the flaws and understand, Karkat closed his eyes in his bed, took hold of the ties of unity between him and everything, the flowing lines of ancestry that made the world, the actions that created them as they were ( _the blood, it made them what they were and who they were, and the blood remembered_ )...

And Karkat walked into the memory worlds, the patchwork places of forgotten timelines, roads made where the threads of minds flowed together to make dream lands. In Paradox Space, in tatters after the defeat of Lord English but not destroyed (because death takes so much but it can't take away what has been done, and life still has things to do even when its over), Karkat moved onwards.

He'd seen a thousand Alternias before the sun fell over the eyes of his physical body; he watched the Signless love the ancestors of Nepeta and Sollux and Kanaya, seen the Condesce tear them apart with desirous eyes upon his own ancestor. Saw before that, every moment of his ancestor's bloody revolution against the corruption Lord English had made with Aradia's ancestor as his pawn. His ancestor was always full of _rage,_ but there was no hatred in him, not even platonic. For his enemies, there was a platonic pity, and Karkat felt an echo of what he had when he was fed up with his friend's nonsense.

It made him think of what if Equius had been truly loyal to the Condesce, or Terezi _really_ buy into the corrupt laws like he'd first assumed when he met her. Or if Feferi been as terrible and cruel as the Condesce. So many ways everything could have been worse; he'd walked through those what-ifs, seen every terrible moment, and he wept for them in silence.

And in the dark, in those moments where he saw but stayed apart from the dream, he was not alone.

He wasn't not alone when he saw the Signless die on the flogging jut, rage fully rising in eyes as red as his own, and jaws almost breaking from the strain as he uttered the Vast Expletive. Just for a moment, Alternia shuddered, and the moon paused, and Karkat felt himself being written into being, and he'd wanted to cry, to scream all the while; someone like Kanaya but bigger and tired, snarling and sobbing as the arrow sank into his ancestor's chest. A burly olive-blood, with the same cat things as Nepeta, held down with chains and forced to watch the red drip on the ground. A yellow-blood ( _oh god, those eyes, red and blue, it's not Sollux, it's NOT_ ) weeping like a wriggler that had been opened up, it will get so much worse for you, you have eons left to suffer, _I'm so sorry-_

And in the crowd, standing above even the biggest highblood, was the biggest damn troll he had _ever_ seen in his entire life, looking mournful and angry, but also like she didn't quite belong there. her hands shaking on a long cane like she needed to hold it or she'd break herself in half from screaming. Angular horns and a mass of spiky hair that feels so familiar, like blue leaves and forests, enough blue-green on a legislacerator's uniform to suggest _tealblood,_ she was forcing herself to watch and bear witness, claws tightening on a cane but her body was tensed so much she looked like she might explode.

Over her chest was _Terezi's symbol._

And in the dream, the actors cannot say a word, can only replay the events that happened here. There were several kinds of dream bubbles; and he was not in the sort he first encountered. This wasn't a world formed by the souls of people inside it and Paradox Space giving it form, but just a memory. It was not, in any sense, real. He kept telling himself it wasn't real, over the stink of burning flesh and blood dripping from blue whips, the executioner's face flashing with brief doubts that looked _so_ much like Equius... Not real. People that looked so much like his friends were not _really_ screaming as their family is torn apart and they all die alone, forgotten and broken. Old pain, old wounds-

(He can't ignore it. He was the Knight of Blood.)

But, as he focused on leaving, trying to force himself out of this nightmare, no one can see him, these memories didn't know he was there, they couldn't touch him or see him or speak to him. Just play out old events.

And yet, for a moment, as her head lifted and turns, teal eyes brimming with fury, her face softens, just for a moment as she looked _directly at him_.

Only for a moment. The memory continued, in all its horror. Karkat watched his ancestor die.

There are things here he brings back home. Things he tells the others. Facts that are relevant to the leaders of his new world, trolls and humans and carapacians who need to learn things. He will steer them away from the role of old Alternia and its ruthless brutality, he will tell them why the hemospectrum should be left a forgotten relic of a dead world, he will tell them why humanity needs to remember every blood-soaked moment of its ancestors on Old Earth. But; there are things he will _not_ speak of.

He won't tell Kanaya how her ancestor dies broken, forgotten, grateful for the mercy of death. He won't tell Sollux how the Psiionic was made into a, a _toy_ for the Condesce's pleasure. He won't tell Nepeta her ancestor died alone, no other details necessary. He won't tell them a lot of the stuff he sees. They don't need to hear this.

And as he navigated the complex by-ways of Paradox Space, increasingly more panicked as he realized that he was blundering into completely random dream bubbles and had no idea what the hell he was doing or where he was going, he felt faint flashes of an increasingly familiar shape.

Here, as he walked through a prehistoric jungle, he saw angular horns looming behind a tree. Or here, he sat at a campfire and listened to ancient trolls growling in mangrove swamps, and the tealblood with Terezi's symbol sitting on a rock and wave to him. And there, in his house, with his lusus, _in his old home-_

Well, actually. She didn't go in. She stood outside, at the edge of his lawnring, arms folded behind her and looking so much like Terezi that it ached. She seemed to be watching him; not in the fashion of a killer about to strike, but...

He didn't know. A lusus watching a wiggler. That didn't feel right either. It didn't strike the right tone.

But as he delved deeper into Paradox Space, there she was, silent and watchful and waiting for... something. Karkat decided she was playing a game, and waited for her to make her move before he did anything.

She made her move when Karkat finally wandered into a Beforan bubble. Another actor memory, which was fortunate for him because to really understand Beforus, he didn't want it colored by the attitudes of the actual Beforans he'd met. He needed to understand it's problems to grasp its relevance to his new world.

The Beforan culling, with what benefits it brought... and the terrible abuses it could engender. The loss of self-determination, lowbloods having their rights and their lives stripped from them and becoming little more than helpless wrigglers in the grip of highbloods; no freedom, no hope. No choice.

And that was for the ones who lived _good_ lives with kindly cullers who do not do terrible things; he sees things here that he will not speak of. He just grimly makes notes of this, and considers the dangers of simply mimicking Beforan culling.

The mysterious troll was there, and he found himself wondering if she was thinking the same things as him or not.

She finally made her move at, as ultimately he realized later would be typical of her entire bloodline, at the most embarrassing possible moment for him; when he was mortified to watch an echo of his dancestor fumble his words in front of Terezi's dancestor.

And there she was. The mystery troll, sitting on a fence and watching them with a look on her face like she thought this was supposed to be familiar. She turned her attention to him and Karkat thought he was seeing double. Latula, he thinks her name is. Two of her; the one talking with Kankri, and the mystery troll, a _bigger_ Latula. Yeah. Definitely bigger.

Dream bubbles blending together. Memories flowing together and spoiling the study. He thought a few things more like this before the tealblood stands up, walks through the memory-Beforans like they're made of air and halts half a dozen feet from him, looking _right_ at him.

Maybe he should have fled; maybe that was safer. But he didn't. He wasn't sure why.

Two things became clear to him. First, she looked a lot like Terezi, but not exactly; she was slimmer in places where Terezi wasn't, and thicker in places where Terezi was... well, less so, even if that didn't mean much. The horns were a lot longer, jawline shaped differently.

And the second thing was actual two separate things. First, he'd never been close enough to her to actually get a good look at her. Not only did she look hauntingly familiar but different in so many ways, but she was also so pretty- no. Not pretty. Pretty was a more childish word than she warranted. She was _beautiful._ And he associated beauty with things like naked blades, blood dripping on meteor floors, Terezi's teeth, Rose smiling grimly behind crossed needles or wands, the look of a meadow before the monsters rolled in, that way Terezi yawned right before her jaws basically dislocated and she ate all the butter without even asking-

Pretty things were scary as hell and _boy_ was she absolutely scary. And he still wasn't running. He wasn't sure why.

As she approached, he felt more certain that he probably ought to. She was _big._ He'd seen the Condesce, in memories, and there were tons of stories talking about how _huge_ she was, how beautifully fierce and impossibly gigantic she was. Female trolls were bigger than males, and even so the Condesce was a giant among there people. And yet still, he always concluded that Terezi (so big, but so achingly delicate with him, like he was made of crystal sugar and glass) was bigger than that, even bigger than Feferi. This troll, even with that in mind, was _even_ more frighteningly massive than Terezi, like Terezi in a few more years of growth and maybe a secondary pupations. It was like comparing a sapling with a tree in the full bloom of its growth.

She walked right up to him, her shadow pooling around him. He felt disinclined to flee, even if he wasn't sure why; if she wanted to attack him already, she probably would have, and it was painful to imagine malice from anyone that looked so much like Terezi.

She smiled faintly down at him. Teal eyes stared down at him from behind sunglasses the same color as his own heretical blood – glasses, he belatedly realized a few stunned moments too late, that looked so much like Terezi's. They were probably the same pair.

This was _Terezi's ancestor._ Neophyte Redglare. She rolled her huge shoulders and, yes; he winced at the marks on her neck, faded and the color of dull bruises. She didn't even need to have them now; maybe she liked them. He stared up at her, unbelieving of how irresponsibly _massive_ she was,not so much simply broad as just incredibly bulky at every conceivable angle. Broad shoulders, big bust, big gut, bigger hips. Legs several times as wide around as Karkat's body shifted lazily back as she leaned away, looking down speculatively at him, large digger's claws lightly resting atop a cane held in a jaunty way, the claws grasping the snout of a dragon's-head ornament. The gesture was surprisingly casual. Despite it being more like the girl in the memory, Beforan Latula all but forgotten in the moment, he briefly thought it was a Terezi thing to do.

For a second, he even thought that he was meeting another Terezi; some forgotten timeline where she lived long enough to get old and _really, really hot._ The thought flipped across his mind before he could get a handle on it and she immediately grinned in a very familiar way. Not exactly like Terezi, not slow like she was doing her best to pretend she knows what smiling is like. This tealblood grinned like she was putting on a show, like she's being graded on points and damn if she won't do her very best to show her stuff.

It also felt a lot like someone who had been planning this moment for a while, waiting for exactly the right time to make her move.

"Hey," she said playfully, and leaned in. "Glad to finally _meet_ you." Her lips looked very much like Terezi's. Large lips, and thick too, very round, tinted closer to her blood color without lipstick, and the smile more like a mass of bared knives, little smaller teeth branching off the bigger fangs at frightening angles. That damned cocky smile was almost the same-

Just like, Karkat realized with a kind of resigned shock, how the Signless' surly grimace looked almost exactly like he himself did.

She moved several steps towards him like she was carefully evaluating the effect of every move, seeming all the world like a dragon that had found a most interesting jewel drop right into her hoard and _clearly_ in need of polishing. Her uniform even looked like Terezi's old FLARPing costume; a legislacerator's uniform, the single piece coat over leggings and all tight enough to fit over her frame like a one piece. The heavy fabric was like armor, making her look even bulkier than she already was. Karkat swallowed, a dull blush starting to creep up his neck.

"H-hi," he mumbled, looking away.

A large hand, gloved in padded fabric the same color as his blood, braced against his jawline and gently took hold of him. His face was inexorably turned towards her, not with any force but with a kind of irresistible sternness. "Speak up," she said. "Please."

"Hi?" he said, looking right into her eyes and snout. Her lips looked very soft, but her teeth very sharp.

She chuckled. "Better!" Her voice was deep and rumbling, surprisingly melodious and rasping with unexpected emphasis on certain sounds, with a faint trace of accent he couldn't place. "You look just like him." She stood up straight, and her shadow fell over him. "Except, heh..." she grinned, teeth sharp and slick. " _Bite-sized._ "

Karkat froze.

The cane rose, tapping him on each horn. Not enough to hurt or even sting, just enough to give him a bit of a ding. "I'm kidding, kid."

Karkat tensed, untensed, and was getting unfocused enough that he wasn't even clinging to the memory around him, and with nothing to anchor it...

Well. These dream bubbles needed something to keep them there. Or they weren't bastions of thought in the depths of the Outer Rings. They were sand castles, washed away.

Redglare looked up, as the sky opened up into the vast eye of something that was everything Karkat did not wish to know. "Oh _shit,_ " she mumbled, grumbling something about this not being the best first impression. "It's falling apart!"

Trees disappeared. The ground curled up and broke away, and Beforus faded away for him. Kankri and Latula, their ancient conversation turned to static, vanished. And the world around him was simply... _gone._

It was all untangling around him as he lost hold of the thoughts and feelings that had made it, it was starting to drift away, and blackness seep in. Cold, strange, not exactly hostile but that odd sense of alien-ness of minds making a space for more minds to move in and put an imprint in.

Like being out in the cold, standing in a storm. _Don't get caught in the dark._

The bigger tealblood, Redglare, moved with the same speed that was startling in a troll so broad, suddenly right behind him, heavy hands on his shoulder. "Don't move," she said, suddenly all business and deadly seriousness. One arm dove under him, around his legs and knees, and she pulled _up,_ and suddenly Karkat was in the air, his back and legs cradled against the larger troll's heavy arm, thick muscle against his body like the skin of a recuperacoon, and unfortunately pressing him against the softness of her generous bust. In the circumstances not _unpleasant,_ exactly, but it was a bit of intimacy that was pretty damn distracted. He made a squeaking sound.

He expected her to laugh, tease him, do something to make the situation even more embarrassing. Instead she was silent, stern. In the fading light, at his angle, all he could see of her eyes were her glasses. Made her eyes look cherry-red.

He was briefly aware that he was being held in a fashion that was typically more appropriate for a would-be concupiscent character in the arms of the Dashing Hero and he realized 'Shit, I am, aren't I'.

Redglare seemed away of his thoughts, even as the ground cease to have any relevant existence for them. She did _something,_ he wasn't exactly sure what, but he felt a glimpsed of the bit that made her who she was latching on to something immaterial, tugging hard, reeling herself in or pulling herself away _to_ it, and then-

They were gone. No more blackness.

Ironically, for him, he blacked out at that point.

Time passed. Somehow.

There were dreams. Dreaming within a dream; he never had much patience for that kind of meta-textual nonsense and if he'd been awake for it he would have complained, a _lot._ As it was, he merely grumbled and fussed in his dreams, and was vaguely aware of a comforting presence all around him, smelling of dragons and blue-green.

Claws, sharp but gentle, gingerly touching his cheek like they weren't sure if they were allowed to. Snatching away as he moved, like she was ashamed.

He remembered fumbling for that hand. It was a nice touch. He'd liked it.

At some point after, he opened his eyes, blinking dully.

There was a living room. A sofa. A vast, reptilian creature laying through a window, one massive red eye regarding him solemnly, and Karkat stared numbly at the beast slowly turning its, her, face to him. Long snout, sharp teeth. Eyes glowing so bright he _damn well better avert his eyes._ Better, light got less bad. He dared to look up and it pointed its head away, exposing horns as long and blade-thin as a Pyrope's. A head the size of a buggy yawned noisily, which for a lusus was a good sign among mixed company.

A dragon. A dragon _lusus._

He turned aside at heavy steps; a doorway, bigger than anything he'd ever seen except for Terezi's home, and how appropriate because here that ludicrously pretty and kind of terrifying troll from the dream bubble came right now. She wasn't wearing her uniform now, but the simple attire common to lowbloods from the time periods he had initially glimpsed her in.

A tealblood, in lowblood colors; a _highblood_ in clothes beneath her station. For a moment he thought he'd wandered into another timeline but noticed that the symbol displayed prominently on the top was the same shade as Terezi.

He tried to form the word 'Redglare', and found it weirdly inappropriate to actually speak her title aloud.

She carefully sat down next to him, and he now noticed that he was sitting on some sort of makeshift cot. "Hey," she said, patting his shoulder, her palm engulfing it entirely. Karkat, despite being small, with still broad and bulky, lean muscle built up over the many time cycles playing the game, but the tealblood was simply so big that he felt almost as tiny as a human compared to her.

He flinched away; she was just so big, looming just by sitting down, that her very presence was alarming. She looked alarmed, hurt flashing across her face, and in a very Terezi gesture she shrugged and sat back, gently placing a cup on the ground.

"Drink it," she said, scooting away from him a bit and dragging some of the blanket with her. He stared dubiously at her. "Come on, drink it. It's nice, I promise."

He glanced from cup to her, and took a sip. "Okay, fine, it's not poisoned, _probably,_ but if I spontaneously explode or turn into, shit, I don't know, a quillbeast, I'm gonna call bullshit."

She gave him a Look. Then she snorted. "Psh, whatever."

Karkat took another drink, longer; the drink was warm, faintly sweet and made his throat tickle. "Okay, yeah, sure, okay, this _doesn't_ suck horribly. The hell is this?"

"Hell if I know," the Pyrope said lazily. "I only ever knew what you ordered it as in my time, but I only knew a language that hasn't been used in hundreds of years and spoken in a country that no longer existed before you were even born."

A long moment of reflection. "Shit, you're old."

"Bite me, shortie."

Karkat just stared at her, slowly sipping distrustfully from the cup. It was hard to be too suspicious of her; he was instinctively inclined to follow anyone who looked that much like Terezi. Highblood, at least a highblood with interest in you, meant _safe._ The lowblood clothes were throwing him off, though, and she kept giving him furtive glances like she was worried he'd snap in half if he moved too fast.

She stuck out a hand. "Neophyte Redglare."

Karkat extended a hand and cautiously shook three or so digits, which was the closest he could get to properly shaking her hand. "Uh. Karkat Vantas."

"Psh, I goddamn knew _that!_ " She poked him in his soft chest, right on the symbol of the Holy Irons.

"Ow!"

"Wimp." She gave him a friendly pat on the back that nearly knocked him over.

He glared up at her, huddling into his sweater. Furtively looking at her, he mumbled something.

"Speak up," she said. "Can't hear you~!"

"You were following me in the dream bubbles, weren't you?"

"Course I was." She made a scoffing noise. "Look what almost happened to you." She grinned fiercely. "A pretty lady walks up to you and your whole world _literally_ falls apart."

He scooted his knees up. "Hmph," he mumbled, not really able to come up with a comeback for that because it was blatantly true. "So _why?!_ "

"Because I'm worried about you. Duh." She grinned again as he looked at her in surprise. "And you're cute. I like you."

His brain sort of fizzled out. Something else occurred to him, ridiculous though it was in the circumstances, and he knew he had to say it, it was the most obvious thing possible but if he didn't say it he was gonna run out of things quick to say."You're... you're Terezi's ancestor, aren't you?"

Redglare nodded, evidently pleased. "Yep." After some thought, she continued. "And you're the descendant of the Sufferer. You're Kankri's descendant."

She was not asking a question. "Y-yeah," Karkat said, even so. "...Wait, do you mean the guy from Beforus, or-"

She waved a hand. "Name's the same. We're the same people, but circumstances change. On Beforus, he was pent up and angry and didn't know what to do about it. On Alternia, he just got mad." She smiled fondly. "You really need to have a talk with him sometime."

He blinked. "Wait, talk with him-"

"But not like this!" She poked him in the soft belly; not particularly hard, not at all forceful, it almost tickled. He swatted her finger away. "You... you really have no idea how to navigate the dream bubbles, do you?" She snorted. "Even with Blood powers, you're kind of screwing that up."

"Well, excuse _me_ for being a complete- wait." He blinked. "Blood powers are good for navigating the dream bubbles!?"

"Sure, probably. Why not?" Redglare cackled; Karkat sputtered in incoherent indignation and she just cackled harder. She became serious, though, and business-like again. "But I will be clear. You're getting into _dangerous_ situations, kid." Her hand found his shoulder again, and the touch was inviting. Cool, even chill, but not painfully freezing. He did not feel particularly inclined to shake her off, though he felt that if he _did,_ she'd remove her hand like she'd been stung. "I might be slightly concerned."

"...Oh. Of course." He lowered his head to the ground, briefly wondering if he should be saying anything, but it might be okay around the ancestor of Terezi and _oh hell with it,_ he just did not give a damn anymore. "Of freaking _course_ I'm screwing that up! Just like I've screwed up everything else-"

"Shush." A hand found the spot behind his horns, pressing gently, softly, and he almost went completely limp where she papped him. Claws lingered on him skin as she leaned in, close. Closer, her breath flush against his skin, the coolness of her inviting, her strength not so much frightening now as relaxing...

A coolness against the base of one horn, startlingly intimate and familiar. "Let it go," Redglare said, her voice still soft, lightly tracing little patterns on his skin, the corners of her mouth turning up gently.

He leaned in, not really knowing or understanding why. He nodded meekly.

"I've had a _hella long time_ getting used to understanding how these dream bubbles work," Redglare said softly, tipping her glasses away from her eyes. They were a bright and brilliant teal, a brightly green around the slits of her irises. Not quite the same shape as Terezi's; wider and not as angular, heavy eyebrows scarred with old sword-cuts that had come dangerously close to her eyes. "In relative terms. What you need is... ah... a teacher."

"A... teacher?" Karkat repeated.

"Okay, I'm in," Redglare said, as if privy to an entirely different conversation. She winked at him and he wiggled, blushing again even as he glowered, fully away that she was completely dominating the situation. She cackled. "Let's make it an exchange. I teach _you_ a thing, like say how to actually get back home-"

Karkat blinked, openly horrified. "What, you mean I can't get home now!?"

"Not the way you're in now." She looked apologetic. "But I do. I can show you the way. I can show you a _lot_ of neat shit."

"Okay... okay. And, wait. What do _you_ want?"

"What do I want?" She repeated, voice going a bit lower. "Oh, let's call it... services rendered. I do you a favor, you do me a favor. For the record, oh... how about you give _me_ a little kiss, and I help you get back home?"

Karkat blinked. He had _not_ been expecting that. "I. What?"

She stood up straighter, the playful tone leaving her. "Oh, oh damn. Did, did that sound like I was pressuring you. Shit, I promise, that is _not_ what I meant, seriously. I'll help you get back, no problem-"

"It's okay!" Karkat yelled, more passionately than he meant. "I... I mean... I can do that...?"

"You mean what I just said or... the bit before that?"

"Um. The. The, uh. The second one?"

"Ah. Oh." She chuckled deeply. She delicately leaned in and picked him up, gently depositing him on her lap. Her thighs were very big, _extremely_ strong but also very soft, it was actually nicer than the bed he'd been sitting on. "Then would you mind if I took _advance payment?_ "

"Um..." he leaned in and carefully kissed her hand, still lightly grasping his shoulder. "Not really."

She looked surprised, and then grinned. "Now you're talking my language, buddy."


End file.
